Entwilightened
by PingZing
Summary: Alec Balkojec's otherwise mundane and average life changes for the stranger when a certain Twili drops into it.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Midna, and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.

**Entwilightened**

_Chapter 1_

Fat droplets of water stampeded against the window in their attempt to break it down. Simultaneously, thunder boomed through the tiny apartment, rattling windows, shifting doors, and causing its sole inhabitant to flinch.

"God damn…" he muttered under his breath, getting up from his position on the floor, "Sounded like that actually hit something."

He crossed the room in two long strides and looked at the rooftop-filled horizon. He was disappointed to find no signs of a lightning strike. It wasn't so much that he wanted a fire or any such catastrophe—he was just anxious for something to do, or something to happen. He was out of school for the next few months, his friends were either busy or out of town and he, not being a very social person, was left without anything to do. He didn't have a job at the moment; the University fees had been less than he had expected, leaving him with surplus loan money that would easily see him through the next month or two.

He rapped his fingertips against the windowpane irritably. In addition to all that, the damn rain was keeping him inside. Normally, he wasn't against a bit of rain—quite the opposite—but this was a real storm. "Pouring buckets" as his friends would say. He looked down onto street, and saw it nearly deserted. What few passerby he saw moved quickly, trying to escape the pervasive cold and wetness. Water coated everything, running in a thin sheet over everything flat, directed by gravity alone. The best thing to do on a day like this was huddle up inside and savor the warm and dry.

He sighed, moved back to his previous position on the floor of the room, and sat back down heavily. He picked up the Wiimote and unpaused the game. He was playing _The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess_. He had beaten it several times, and didn't particularly feel like playing, but it was either that or stare at the walls as far as he was concerned.

He wasn't doing anything in particular in the game…just roaming about the overworld, beating up on whatever random baddies he ran into. The save file he was playing had everything unlocked, so there was nothing left to accomplish, and beating the game for the umpteenth time held no appeal.

Just as he was considering starting a new save file to attempt a three-hearts clear again, thunder boomed again. This time, the widows clattered and vibrated in their panes, and he heard a door elsewhere in the apartment slam shut. The lights and TV flickered once, and with a quiet _pwp!_ sound, went out altogether. He could swear he even felt the floor shaking.

As the thunder faded away, he got to his feet, looked out across the city and let out a long-suffering sigh. With the power to the apartment out, he was facing the prospect of an even bleaker day. As his frustration faded, he became aware of the silent apartment. Normally, it was filled with a variety of sounds that were so commonplace he had forgotten to hear them. Now that they were gone, their absence was jarring.

In fact, he realized he was feeling more than a little unsettled. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and a chill ran down his spine. Somehow, without understanding how, he knew that there was someone _in the apartment with him_. He turned around, crept across the room and as silently as he could, grabbed a nearly-forgotten wooden curtain rod out of the corner of the room. Stepping lightly through the doorway, he brandished the curtain rod like a medieval sword.

He scanned the living room for anything out of the ordinary, a difficult task in the powerless room, with the only source of illumination being the watery gray light filtering through the window. The only sounds were his breathing and, when the wind changed direction, the rain crashing against the glass.

The only things he saw in the living room were the usual—the battered old TV on the entertainment center next to the window, the chipped and cigarette-scarred coffee table in front of it, with the entire ensemble completed by a tired-looking, sagging couch.

He resisted the urge to ask if anybody was there on the grounds that in most horror movies, this led to a horrible, grisly death. Not that the thought that a grisly death was even remotely possible was a comforting one, but his imagination tended to run rampant when left to its own devices.

After several tense seconds of staring into the living room, he found nothing out of place, and relaxed slightly. He lowered the curtain rod, and sat down. He rubbed his temples with his left hand, maintaining the grip on the curtain rod with his right.

"Dunno what that was all about…just thunder and lightning. _Sturm und drang_…" he muttered to himself, trying to get his hammering heart under control. He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. That seemed to help. Maybe he could try another…

He was halfway through his fourth deep breath when he halted abruptly. The hair on the back up his neck stood up once more, and a wave of heat flooded his body for a moment as his fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. He could detect something just on the edge of his hearing…something like a low buzzing hum. But that was normal, right? Electrical appliances made that sound.

_When they're powered, yes!_ He thought furiously. He gripped the curtain rod in both hands and stood up. He swiveled to face…yes…his room. The sound was definitely coming from in there. He approached it slowly, arms tensed to swing the wooden weapon if he detected so much as a hint of a threat. His breath echoed in his ears, and he willed himself to breathe quietly, lest he give away his position. He poked his head around the doorway into his room, hoping that he wasn't in for a nasty surprise.

His hopes went unfulfilled. Swirling violently in the center of the room, hovering several feet in the air was a maelstrom of small, two-dimensional black squares. Whipped about as if in a violent storm, the black squares zoomed through the room, speeding up and slowing down at random. As they flew, they trailed a smoky black residue that clouded the flock of black things.

Something nagged at the back of his mind. _I've seen that somewhere before_…As his eyes widened with realization, the black cloud pulsed outward once and gave an almighty _CRACK!_ sending him to his rear in surprise. The black cloud collapsed to the floor and coalesced into a humanoid shape.

He climbed to his feet again, and held the curtain rod without much conviction and quickly trotted over to the sprawled figure on the ground. As he got a better look at it, he inhaled sharply. Sprawled and unconscious of the floor of his bedroom something—some_one_, he corrected himself—impossible. She didn't exist. And yet, here she was, as real as the makeshift weapon in his hand and the carpet under his feet.

Lying crumpled on the floor in front of him was Midna, the Twilight Princess.

* * *

Notes: Yes, the story is utterly self-indulgent. No, it will not be a self-insert, because I hate those with all my mindpower. I've chosen to set the story on Earth for a number of reasons, but frankly I doubt you care too much about my story writing philosophy.

Chapter two is written and edited. It'll go up soon. If you've enjoyed the story so far, I'd love to hear from you. If you hated it, I'd still love to hear from you.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Midna and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.

**Entwilightened**

_Chapter 2_

_This is not happening_, he thought, _this kind of thing does not happen to me._ _It happens to dashing and rugged heroes who are well-equipped to handle this sort of thing._

He stared harder at the figure on his bedroom floor, hoping that perhaps she'd simply disappear like the hallucination she certainly was. The hallucination brought on by…by…

Absolutely nothing. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and sat down on his bed. The room spun and his ears rang. He gritted his teeth, clenched his eyes shut and focused all his willpower on not panicking.

_I'm going to open my eyes and it's just going to be one of my friends, pranking me. They'll jump up and shout "You just got punk'd!" Yep_. _Everything's completely and absolutely normal._

He opened his eyes. The impossibly-real fictional character was still unconscious in front of him. Fiery orange-and-yellow hair, pale blue-grey skin tone that darkened to black in places, covered in what seemed to be luminescent blue tattoos. She was dressed in what appeared to be a bikini top-with-added-cloak. It had a hood, sleeves, a cape and everything. Completing the ensemble was a floor length loincloth, of all things. The entire outfit was black with grey-and-green trim. She was, without a doubt, the very same character from the video game.

He registered all of this in moments, before his adrenaline-addled mind noticed the far more important details.

She was covered in cuts, and bleeding. Stranger still, her blood wasn't red as he might've expected, but a pale silvery-green. His stomach gave a lurch as he realized just how badly injured she was. The room spun yet again, but he ignored the sensation this time and lurched from his position on the bed. He stumbled with all his speed to the bathroom and ripped open the medicine cabinet. He began frantically shoving bottles and boxes aside and tearing them out of the cabinet in his search. After an eternity, he found what he was looking for, and grabbed a nondescript brown bottle.

"Yes! Now I need...dammit…" he scanned the remains of the cabinet, and found nothing suitable. His gaze landed on an unused roll of toilet paper and he groaned. "It'll have to do…" Had something like this happened a year ago, he would have had enough medical supplies to perform minor surgery if necessary. Now, he was cursed with what he had.

He plucked it from its position on top of the counter and ran back to his room. He set his supplies down on the floor next to the unconscious princess. He twisted the cap off the brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and wadded up a ball of toilet paper. He poured the peroxide on the makeshift sterilized sponge and went to work cleaning up the dried blood. He shuddered slightly as he touched the strange-looking stuff, half-expecting it to be acidic, or posses some other horrible property. Fortunately, his fears were baseless, and he began the process of stabilizing his unconscious houseguest.

As he worked, he was astounded at just how much blood there was. There were tiny cuts everywhere, some he didn't even find until he cleaned up the barely-coagulated blood coating them. In other places, there were long ragged tears in the skin, as though something jagged had been dragged across it. He shuddered as he thought about it. The pain must have been excruciating.

As he cleaned up the cuts, he wrapped the nastier looking ones in toilet paper to serve as makeshift bandages until he could find a more permanent solution. In a halfhearted attempt to keep them sterilized, he drizzled the peroxide on the tissue. This worked well until he reached her head and found most of her forehead coated in the silvery-green stuff. He followed the trail of dried blood, and found the source—a matted mess of blood and hair on the scalp that was still oozing. He winced at the sight of it, and gently dabbed away the blood. Once he had cleared away most of the fresh blood, he cleaned and bound the wound as best he could at the awkward angle. As he finished, he looked down and slumped. It looked like that was the last of the particularly dangerous looking injuries. The unnatural silence of the powerless apartment returned, broken only by his gradually-slowing heartbeat and the dark-skinned princess's shallow breathing.

As he allowed his tunnel-vision to subside, he sat back and looked with some satisfaction over his improvised bandage job. It wasn't great, as far as first-aid went, but it would hold for now. An entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide and nearly half a roll of toilet paper weren't ideal for medical emergencies, but he hadn't exactly had time to be choosy. At least he hadn't had to improvise a splint for broken bones. That experiment with his friends in roof-hopping had not been pleasant for anybody involved.

Not one to allow him a moment of relaxation, his mind prodded him with further worries—what had caused all those injuries? And what about that head trauma? He didn't know much about head wounds, but he did know that they could lead to serious damage if left untreated. Or maybe treatment didn't matter? As he realized just how little he knew about the situation he struggled to keep his panic from bubbling back up to the surface.

_Okay. Facts. You have a fictional, _real_, but fictional character unconscious and bleeding in your bedroom. You've stopped the bleeding for now. You don't know what caused it. You know nothing about Twili physiology. You don't know why she's he—_

_Oh. _Shit._ Physiology._

It hadn't even occurred to him that her physiology might be significantly different. What if hydrogen peroxide was poisonous to her, or some other quirk like that? He clutched his forehead in his hands and massaged his temples with his fingertips.

"Okay. She needs further treatment," he said, pacing. "I know that much. Treatment…treatment treatment treatment…hospital? No, no way, can't take that kind of risk, too public anyway…what about local…ah! Duh!" He smacked his forehead and made to grab the telephone. As he reached to the doorway he glanced back at his "patient". She hadn't moved.

"Don't die on me, all right?" He grimaced.

He grabbed the telephone from the cradle, _why oh why didn't I charge my cell phone_, hit the _Phone_ button and dialed the number for his doctor's office.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up…" He never thought that the sound of a phone ringing could frustrate him so much.

Finally, "Doctor Kiowa's office, can I help you?"

He cheered silently. Doctor Kiowa herself had picked up. He didn't know what he'd tell some interchangeable receptionist. "Yes, hello, I've got a fictional alien here who's suffered massive trauma" didn't seem like it'd garner a response. The doctor, however, he knew personally.

"Doc!" he nearly shouted. He cleared his throat, and took a deep breath. _Calm…_"Doc, I've got uh, kind of an emergency. It's me, Alec. Alec Balkojec. A uh…a friend of mine is really hurt, all cut up. I'm going to bring them in to your place. Can you be ready for them in…like, ten minutes?" He was hoping that the doctor didn't ask too many questions, or question too closely.

"Hurt? How?" Came the response from the other end of the line, "And what kind of severity should I expect?"

_Good, she's going to help…_he thought, sagging with relief. "I'm not…exactly sure how it happened. Severity…uh, lots of little cuts and a couple of nasty looking gashes. Oh, and a really bad looking head wound. No idea what caused it. I did my best to clean and bind the wounds, but I'm no doctor, y'know?"

"Alec…I'm not even going to ask how it happened. Get down here, ASAP. I'll be ready."

"Thank you so much, doc! I'll be there as soon as I can!"

"Be careful. I don't want to have to sew up your leg again." With that, she hung up. He swore he heard an exasperated sigh before the line went dead.

He grinned briefly before the gravity of the situation returned to him. He had to transport Midna to the doctor's office somehow. She wasn't exactly going to blend in. He needed something to cover her with. A blanket wasn't going to work, it'd be too suspicious. He wracked his brain for a moment, before a solution offered itself.

He dove into his closet, flinging old clothes left and right before he got to the bottom of the pile and found what he was searching for. A floor-length black trench coat he had used as a Halloween costume two years ago. Perfect. He pulled it out of the closet and laid it out on the floor next to the comatose princess. He knelt down and gently lifted her, placing her on top of the coat. He slipped her arms into the sleeves, and belted the coat closed. He lifted her head carefully, and slipped the hood of her cloak on. It wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny, but he didn't have much choice.

Now for the hard part. He looked at his arms and grimaced. It was not going to be fun getting her down to the ground floor and into the car; his arms could only be described as "scrawny". He sighed and kneeled down next to his patient, and slid his arms under her—beneath the knees and the shoulders–and lifted. He stumbled, and his foot slammed into the ground hard as he adjusted his balance.

_She's heavier than she looks,_ flashed through Alec's mind, as well as _Aaargh ow dammit._

He stood up, adjusted his shoulders and moved to the front door of the apartment. He fumbled with the knob, opened it, and locked it from the inside before closing it. He wouldn't be able to lock the deadbolt from here, so the knob would have to hold until he got back. He awkwardly closed the door, and proceeded down the hallway to the elevator lobby. He pressed the call button and settled back to wait. He glanced around nervously every so often. He wasn't doing anything wrong, but if any of his neighbors caught him holding an unconscious, poorly-bandaged, strangely-colored woman…

Well, who knew what'd happen?

Finally, the elevator _ding_ed and the doors slid open. He stepped inside and, bracing his back against the elevator wall, hit the button for the ground floor with his shoe. He sighed. Soon, he would be on his way. He hated waiting. He knew the elevator was faster than the stairs, but just standing around and waiting felt wrong somehow.

Just when he thought his nerves could take no more, the elevator slowed to a stop. He moved to step out when he looked at the floor indicator. They were still on the third floor.

Somebody was boarding the elevator.

* * *

Notes: Hooray, our protagonist has a name. The tension mounts! How will Alec handle this?

In case you're wondering why Midna bleeds silver-green, well, why not? We never actually see Zelda characters bleed. And it helps increase the weird-factor for poor Alec.

Chapter three is written, and will be edited and uploaded soon. Expect it shortly.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Midna and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.

**Entwilightened**

_Chapter 3_

His heart jackhammered against his chest and he struggled to control the rising fear in his gut. What would he say? What could he say? What if they got a good look at her? He glanced down quickly, tugged her hood higher and shifted his grip.

The doors slid open and he clenched his mouth shut and took a deep breath through his nose. He heard footsteps against the cheap carpet in the elevator lobby, when suddenly a male figure was silhouetted in the elevator doorway. He strode halfway into the car before he froze, his head cocked quizzically in Alec's direction, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Kid…what in the world is that?" said the stranger.

Alec's mouth opened and whatever words he had stuck in his throat. "Ah…eh…"

The stranger's head turned and he regarded Alec with both eyes, and leaned forward. Alec knew he had to say something.

"It…it's a friend of mine. She's hurt. Bad. I'm taking her to the doctor," he stammered. As he said this, Alec saw the stranger's eyes widen in surprise, and then alarm.

"Oh sh…how can I help?" The stranger stood up straighter, ready for whatever came next.

Alec's mind fizzled and sparked under stress, and managed to join two wires long enough to create a sentence. "Um. Here, take her legs, I'll get her torso." Alec shifted as the stranger made use of the limited room in the elevator car, and hefted Midna's legs.

While the two were adjusting positions, the elevator doors had closed, and it had resumed its descent to the ground floor. The two stood in awkward silence as the unspoken questions filled the air. Finally, the stranger could help himself no longer.

"I've got to ask, bro. What's wrong with her?" Absurdly, Alec noticed the other man's accent as being from the east coast. Of all the things to take notice of…

"Uh. She's all cut up. Was bleeding really bad when I found her," Alec said.

"No kidding? How in the…how did that happen?"

"I can say with complete honesty that I haven't the faintest clue," Alec said bitterly. "Nothing sharp around, no signs of an accident. Craziest thing, y'know?" He said, looking at the stranger helplessly.

The elevator doors opened into the apartment lobby, and the two of them exited the car and began half-walking, half-jogging to the exits.

"Damn, kid. That's rough," the other man said. He gave Alec a sidelong glance. "You're gonna freeze out there, dressed like that."

"What?" Alec looked down and realized he was still wearing nothing but jeans and a t-shirt. "Oh, hell. I'm gonna get soaked."

"I guess that was the least of your worries, yeah?"

The two reached the exit and pushed open the door. Alec winced as he met the wall of wind and water but kept up the pace.

"My car's just over here!" He shouted, gently steering the other man.

They reached the car quickly, a battered looking red Saturn with most of the paint on the hood scraped off to reveal the rusted metal beneath. The bumpers had seen better days, and the lights were barely hanging onto the car, but the windows and interior were clean. Alec did what he could.

"Here, you take her for a second! I gotta unlock it!" Alec shouted over the gale, shifting Midna entirely to the stranger and fumbling his keys from his pocket. He unlocked the car, opened the door and motioned to the stranger to lay down Midna on the backseat. Alec ran around to the other side to guide the limp princess into the car.

Once she was secured, he shut the door, and the other man made to the do the same before stopping halfway. He frowned quizzically and asked, "Hey, what's this green stuff on her foot?"

"What?" Alec ran over, to take a look. Her left foot was just peeking out from the bottom of the coat, and was covered in water, tinged silvery-green. The green color was getting stronger, as more blood dripped from her reopened cuts. "Oh hell. I've got to go now."

Alec shut the rear door of the car, ripped open the driver-side door of the car and jumped in. He was just about to shut it when the stranger shouted. "Hey kid! What's your name?"

"Alec! And thanks for your help!"

"No problem! Name's Roger by the way! Good luck!"

Alec slammed the car door, started the car, yanked it into reverse and tore out of the parking lot as fast as conditions and physical laws allowed. He cursed the rain for forcing him to slow down, and thanked it for reducing traffic. The last thing he needed right now was a traffic jam. With that in mind, he stuck to back roads as he wound his way to the doctor's office. As the car raced down the roads of the city, so did his mind down the streets of his fear.

_What if Doc refuses to help her? Does the Hippocratic Oath apply to nonhumans? What if Doc can't do anything? Or worse_, and here his stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch, _what if she doesn't make it there?_

Alec's mind continued to race. Having exhausted all the "what-if", it moved onto the "why". _Why is she here? Why is she all cut up? When does this happen in relation to the game?_

His thoughts continued spinning in a circle for some time until finally he silenced them with some effort. One final wonder that snuck through was _I wonder what she's like in person?_

He shook his head and chuckled at himself. There were more important things to worry about right now. He risked a glance at the unconscious, otherworldly passenger in his backseat and pursed his lips. A trickle of blood was slowly oozing its way down her foot to join the small but growing puddle on the seat cushion.

As he turned back to the road, he thought _That's gonna be hell to get out of the upholstery._

_

* * *

_

Roger stood in the parking lot after Alec had driven off, sheltered from the worst of the elements by a convenient SUV, deep in thought.

_That right there's a situation you don't run into every day. That Alec kid's got it rough. _Roger shook his head. _Hope his friend makes it. Weird looking girl though…barefoot, one foot grey the other black…her face looked a little strange too, now that I think about it. Wish I'd gotten a better look _

He frowned as he pondered further. _Why _was_ she all wrapped up like that, anyway?_ _Maybe he was trying to use it to bind her wounds, or preserve her modesty or something, _he thought, finding reasons. _Yeah..._ Somewhat satisfied, he began walking back toward the apartment complex. Suddenly, his mind threw up a counterargument. _If my friend was all cut up all of a sudden and I had no idea why, I wouldn't waste time covering her up. Something ain't right here._

As he made his way to the elevator doors, his gaze settled on a small silvery-green stain on the ground. He furrowed his eyebrows and bent down for a closer look.

"It's the same color as that green stuff on the girl's foot…" he muttered to himself.

He looked up, eyes traveling in a straight line from the green splotch on the floor to the elevator. Just as he suspected, there were evenly spaced droplets of the stuff on the ground forming a trail from the elevator to the doorway. He stood up, seemed to think for a moment then nodded to himself.

"It could work."

He crossed to the elevators, and entered when one responded to the call. He contemplated the control panel for a moment before pressing the buttons for the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors. He was going to find out where Alec and his friend had come from and satisfy his curiosity.

* * *

Alec blinked the water dripping from his hair out of his eyes and jammed his foot on the brake. He quickly remembered his delicate cargo in the back seat and eased off. The car fishtailed slightly and he pulled into the parking lot at a speed his former driving instructor had once cautioned him was "much too fast!" He pulled into a space at one side of the lot, and hopped out of the car. The rain slapped at him again, but he was ready for it this time.

Doctor Kiowa's office was a small suite tucked into the far end of a crowded shopping center. Alec had always heard that the hole-in-the-wall places offered the best service, and Alec had discovered that this held true, even for the medical professions. He held no illusions, and knew the Doc was probably the exception rather than the norm, but appreciated it all the same. Her smaller clientele and office gave visits to the doctor a homier, more personal feel. This was an important selling point when you had to explain to your doctor what your friend was doing with a broken leg still attached to a snowboard and you didn't want to worry about feeling self-conscious.

Alec carefully opened the car door to the back seat and kneeled down to take Midna into his arms. He gathered her up, booted the car door shut, and began jogging across the parking lot to the doctor's office.

Standing against the door, holding it open was Doctor Kiowa, calmly filing her nails, seemingly oblivious, or perhaps immune to, the weather. She glanced up at him and quirked an eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing. As Alec drew near, without changing her expression or looking away, the doctor stiffly swept her arm toward the doorway in a mockery of servility, beckoning Alec inside. He smirked. Same old Doc.

As Alec crossed the threshold, the doctor's face faded into an impassive mask and she walked briskly ahead of him. "We'll take your friend to room four. Come on."

Alec followed without a word and waited. He knew from experience how this process went. He tried to simultaneously not slip on the puddles of water he was making, and keep the water out of his eyes without the use of his hands.

"What happened and when?"

"I don't know exactly, about twenty minutes ago. Thirty tops."

"You described the patient as "all cut up" and with "a nasty looking head wound". What were the cuts like? Straight like with a knife, or ragged like with teeth or something organic?"

"They seemed ragged to me. Teeth? You think so?"

"Can't rule it out. How about the head wound, anything characteristic?"

"Uh, I don't really know. What should I have been looking for?"

"Did you feel any kind of swelling, like a goose-egg?"

"Hm. I dunno. I don't _think_ so."

"We'll figure it out in a moment then. Here, set her down on the table," she said. They had reached the examination room, and the doctor had quietly closed the door behind them. Alec noted that she already had all her tools set out and prepared. She knew him much too well. While the doctor was turned away, apparently examining and selecting her tools, she asked "Why is your friend in a trench coat?"

"What?"

"I mean, why did you put them in a trench coat?"

Alec frowned. "What makes you think I put a trench coat on her?"

Doctor Kiowa sighed. "Alec, you told me you saw the wounds directly. She obviously wasn't conscious during. Somebody dressed her in a trench coat, and I doubt she was in any position to do so herself." The doctor turned around, and pierced Alec with her gaze, her face stony. "What am I getting myself into here?"

Alec bit his lip. He knew this was a hurdle he was going to have to leap, but he didn't relish it in the least. The Doctor had a way of making you feel guilty without saying a thing. Wordlessly, Alec walked over the figure on the table and drew her hood back. He heard a sharp intake of breath from the Doctor's direction—not a gasp, not quite—and ignored it, moving to unbelt the trench coat. He threw the coat open stood back, and looked up at the Doctor. She didn't even glance at him. She was standing stock-still, staring at her patient, lips pursed slightly, eyebrows the tiniest bit furrowed. Without warning, her head snapped up and she stared straight at Alec. He flinched.

"Alec—"she barked, before seeing his reaction. She softened her expression some and took a deep breath. "What in the world have you gotten yourself into this time?" she sighed.

"And here I was, hoping you'd just think it was makeup or something…" Alec responded weakly.

"Not a chance. The facial structure is all wrong, the eyes are the wrong shape, the limbs are slightly too long, and that hair color looks natural. Not to mention the green blood." The Doctor moved to Midna's side and began peeling off the makeshift bandages from the wounds. As they came away, they left ropes of tacky, partially coagulated blood. Alec screwed his eyes shut and had to look away. Fresh injuries he could handle, but partially-healed wounds nauseated him.

"Well, it seems like the bleeding has mostly stopped. Did you clean the wounds with anything?"

Eyes still closed, Alec responded, "Yeah, hydrogen peroxide."

"Well, given what you had on hand, that was probably the right thing to do. Next time though, don't use toilet paper as a bandage. It tears easily and gets caught in the wounds and can get infected. Now I'm going to have to dig it all out."

Alec paled at the mental image that brought to mind. To him, the word "dig" implied shovels. When combined with the thought of "digging out" something from a wound, it made him very uncomfortable.

As she worked, the Doctor kept up a stream of commentary and questions. "Interesting, it seems like the wounds are fairly fresh, but they're already healing some…Alec," she said, "just who is this girl?"

Alec looked up and grinned humorlessly. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Kiowa sighed. "Alec, I've known you for years. You don't do drugs, you're not insane, and you don't tell stories. Try me."

Alec's vision unfocused and he stared off into the distance. "Fine, but this is going to sound nuts. Ever heard of a video game called _Legend of Zelda_?"

"No."

"It's a fantasy game set in a medieval-style setting. You control a hero, armed with a sword and shield and all that. In the latest game, you reluctantly team up with a little imp critter named Midna. At first she's just using you, but as the game progresses, the two of you grow on each other. At the end of the game, it's revealed that she's not an imp at all, but was just cursed. She was from another realm altogether called the…" Alec trailed off. "Ugh, this is stupid sounding. And crazy."

"I'm still listening. Keep going. I'd like to hear the crazy part."

Alec grimaced. "Okay, fine. Your partner is from the Twilight realm, apparently made up of a bunch of descendants of a people who coveted a power of the land's goddesses, and were thrown into the realm as punishment. "

"Sounds awfully cruel of the goddesses," Kiowa interjected.

"Well, no, because the Twili were trying to—I'm not going to explain the entire game's story!" Alec said, briefly forgetting his self-consciousness. He shook his head and continued, "Anyway, your partner turns out to be the Twilight realm's princess, big surprise."

"Alec…what does this have to do with the alien girl I'm bandaging up here?" Kiowa said slowly. "Oh, this head wound _is _nasty, you were right," she muttered.

"Well…" Alec shifted uncomfortably, "I was sitting in the living room, when I hear this sound from my bedroom. I go to look, and there are all these black squares flying around."

"Black squares," said Kiowa neutrally. Alec gulped—that tone could mean anything.

"Yeah. Right. Black squares. So anyway, all of the sudden, they all collapse into the uh, the girl here. And she's all cut up like this."

"Hmmm…"mused Kiowa, looking at the head wound from another angle. "Yep."

"What? Is there something wrong with her head?"

"No." Kiowa looked up and stared Alec straight in the eye, "That _does_ sound crazy." Alec felt a sinking feeling in his gut. "Fortunately, I believe you. You could have made that up, sure. But I don't have any reason to doubt you. Right now, anyway." Alec relaxed. "Does she have a name?"

Alec blinked at the sudden change in subject. "Yeah. Midna."

"Midna. Like midnight. Because she's the twilight princess. Ha, I get it," the Doctor said flatly. "Okay, get out of here and get into the waiting room. I don't need you anymore," said Kiowa. She turned away from Alec and Midna and dropped the pile of bloody bandages into a trash can.

"What?" Alec bristled. "You kept me in here just because you wanted the full story?"

The Doctor looked up and glared at Alec. "Yes, because I need to know everything I can about my patient. You've got a possibly fatally-bleeding alien that I know next to nothing about. You're lucky I know you so well, and that I'm willing to stay quiet about this. Now don't test my patience anymore. Besides, you look ready to collapse," she added. Alec sagged slightly, and glared daggers at Kiowa ."Out!" She shouted, unfazed.

Alec left the room, and barely checked his desire to slam the door behind him. As he walked down the hall back toward the waiting room, Alec fumed. How dare she kick him out like that? He ought to go right back and refuse to leave until…

He never found out what he would've done next, because at that point he stumbled and nearly crashed to the ground before he caught himself on one knee. As he held himself up off the ground with his arms, he noticed they were shaking. His vision swam for a moment and he swayed. He recovered quickly, and staggered back to an upright position.

_Okay, maybe I need a break after all…_he thought, and shuffled into the waiting room. He collapsed into a chair and groaned as the adrenaline was filtered out of his system and the day's exhaustion caught up to him.

_Oh yeah. Break time…_

_

* * *

_

Notes: Two characters join Alec in their knowledge of a visitor from the Twilight. We learn a little more about Kiowa and Alec's relationship with her. He's an awfully reckless kid, isn't he?

Kiowa is a blast to write. Her dialog practically writes itself.

Chapter four is partially written. Each successive chapter just gets longer and longer, and four looks to be pretty dialog heavy.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Midna and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.

**Entwilightened**

Chapter 4

Doctor Kiowa held a clipboard in her left hand, a pen in her right. She was unconsciously tapping the pen against the clipboard, and her lips were a scarcely visible save for a thin line.

Bandaging the victim had been easy enough. Alec had done a good job keeping the wounds clean, even if the toilet paper had been a mess to handle. She smirked slightly. Leave it to Alec to bring in a victim covered from head to toe in lacerations, swathed in toilet paper. She had an absurdity limit, and he frequently toed the line.

She blinked and refocused on the patient lying on the examination table. Now, the question of what to do with the patient was stranger and more important than usual. Having a person's immediate future in her hands was not unusual for her, but this was bigger than that. What she decided could dictate the course of the rest of this strange woman's life. As far as Kiowa could tell, she had two choices. Report this to someone better suited to handle it (though she would never admit that this was beyond her), such as the police. Or, she could leave the girl in Alec's care.

If she did her "civic duty" (she scowled at the phrase) and reported the "extraterrestrial" (more scowling) to the police, or the government, or whoever handled this kind of thing, the poor woman would spend the rest of her life being interrogated, poked, prodded and hidden away. All for the "betterment of mankind". Kiowa could not repress a shudder at the thought.

Or, she could let the girl heal up, and let Alec take her, and it would cease to be any of Kiowa's business. Life would resume as normal, and eventually the memory would fade away, remaining nothing but a mild curiosity. Simple enough, open and shut case, no problem.

Why was she even trying to fool herself?

She desperately wanted to know more about the multi-hued, tattoo-inscribed princess lying on her examination table. She had grown up on an Iroquois reservation with a deadbeat brother and a drunken father as an example. Her mother had apparently flown the coop when she realized the "man of nature" she had married wasn't all he claimed to be. Her father had often regaled her with tales of her people's past prosperity, their gods and their traditions. Afterward, he would pass out, drunk and snoring on the floor. She grew up hating the reservation and all it stood for. In rebellion, she pursued the most intellectual, logical, and least mystical profession she could think of. She became a doctor. She lead a life of study, academia, and finally healing. It wasn't nearly as glorious as she had envisioned, but it was as rewarding as she had hoped.

Suddenly this inexplicable, illogical woman appears, and everything she thinks she's learned is thrown into question. Letting this opportunity slip through the cracks was out of the question. But she'd be damned if she handed this woman over to the suits, her conscience wouldn't allow it.

On the other hand, leaving her with Alec wouldn't exactly leave her conscience clear either. He was a sweet boy, but she saw him and his friends in her clinic far too often. He was trustworthy, and…moderately responsible, but very young. Kiowa didn't trust him to be able to handle this situation alone, no matter how competent he seemed at the moment. However, she couldn't watch the princess herself—her clinic would keep her busy. Telling the girl when she woke up that she had to stay inside the clinic was out of the question—she knew if she was a stranger in a strange land, exploration would be top on her list of priorities. This didn't account for the girl's personality, but the doctor had a hunch.

So Kiowa struck a compromise with herself.

She would leave Midna in Alec's care but require that he bring her in for weekly checkups and so forth. In the meantime, she would contact several friends from university and ask, purely theoretically of course, if travel between dimensions was possible in any capacity. If she found any leads, she'd quietly refer them to Alec, and possibly help get this poor girl home.

Kiowa blinked. She genuinely wanted to help her patient return to her home dimension. Or world. Whichever. All this, despite the fact that she had not spoken to the girl, or gotten to know her.

She shook her head, and scribbled some barely legible notes onto the forms held to the clipboard. She had filled out so many of these forms that she could very nearly do so in her sleep.

Paperwork complete, she scrutinized her patient once more. Swathed in medical-grade bandages, but otherwise looking none the worse for wear. The bandage that bound her head wrapped around her chin and gave her the appearance of a washerwoman. The ornate jewelry on her forehead muddled the image however; the end result being somewhere between subdued nobility and proud peasantry. Her clothes had been removed, folded and put aside. Ordinarily, she would've thrown away such bloodstained clothes, but these were extraordinary circumstances. For the moment, she was garbed in a simple hospital gown.

She sighed. She was stalling and she knew it. She filed away the blood and tissue samples she had taken for later study, and left the examination room. Before she closed the door behind her, she took one last look at her otherworldly patient.

_More questions than answers today…_

In the waiting room, Alec was similarly introspective. His head was down, one hand over his mouth, one foot jiggling up and down unconsciously. Now that the adrenaline and immediacy had left him, he was left with the cerebral aftermath of what had happened, and none of it was comforting.

_I've got Midna in the examination room of my doctor's clinic. Twilight Princess Midna. Oh man. What happens now? What am I going to tell dad? Do I keep her hidden, or do I tell somebody? What about the Doc? What's _she_ going to think about all this? What about when Midna wakes up, what then?_

A horrible idea occurred to him; _What if she doesn't wake up?_ At this, Alec froze briefly, and shuddered. The thought was somehow too terrible to bear.

Alec's mind wandered further. _I wonder where all the other patients are? Normally she's got one or two in here around this time…and now that I think about it, where is the receptionist? Doc almost never answers the phones personally. I'll ask her when she comes back out, I guess…_

Right on cue, Alec heard the _clp clp clp_ of heels on the floor before the door to the waiting room opened to admit Doctor Kiowa. She strode over to Alec, hooked the chair next to him with her foot, and pulled it out to face him before lowering herself into it. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped under her chin.

A tendril of fear snaked its way into Alec's gut. "Doc, that's your 'something's wrong' pose. What is it?"

"Nothing's wrong. Midna's in stable condition, the bleeding has stopped, and the concussion looks like it won't leave anything lasting but a nasty headache for a day or two," said the doctor.

Alec frowned. "Why the chair, then? You never use the chair unless you mean it."

Kiowa took a deep breath. "It concerns Midna's future while she remains here. I have no desire to see her caged up in a lab somewhere deep in a government base," said Kiowa, straight to the point as usual. She continued, "However, I'm unable to keep an eye on her personally, due to needing to run the clinic." Alec looked at her apprehensively, and she continued. "I've given it some thought, and I'd like you to take her into your care."

Alec narrowed one eye and looked and cocked his head slightly, studying Kiowa. "There's more to this," he said. "Keep going."

"Of course there's more. You're not going to be able to do this by yourself. No, don't say anything, it's true and you know it," she said, cutting Alec off before he could interrupt. "You keep her under your roof, and come for weekly visits to me. Meanwhile, I'll contact some of my colleagues from University, and see what we can do about getting her home," she finished.

"Get her…home. Yeah…I guess that's what we should do," Alec said, frowning.

"You don't want to get her home?" Kiowa asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"I…I guess I hadn't thought about it. I didn't really have time, you know? But…yeah, it's what we're supposed to do, right? If I were stranded somewhere, that's what I'd want to do. Get home," Alec said, rambling.

"You're still not sure of it," Kiowa said calmly.

Alec sighed unhappily. "It's just…here's proof that the world is more than we've always thought, that there's more than we can see. To let that go is…" he trailed off, unable to finish his thought satisfactorily.

Kiowa's features softened, and her voice held an uncharacteristic hint of compassion, "I understand what you mean, Alec. But remember, Midna's not a thing to be coveted—she's a person, just like you or I. We can't forget that."

"Yeah. I know. I _know_ that…it's just a matter of convincing the selfish part of me."

"Don't worry about it now. I'm sure there's more to come, and it's not like you won't get a chance to talk to her," said Kiowa.

Alec looked up, "Right! Doc, how's she look right now, anyway?"

Kiowa stood up and pulled her clipboard out for reference. "I already told you, but I'll give you the details this time. She's stable, and aside from blood loss, seems fine. The head wound doesn't seem to have resulted in a concussion, but there's no way to know for sure until she wakes up, especially with…what did you say she was again?"

"Twili," Alec said.

"Right, especially with how little I know about Twili anatomy. She seems to have passed from unconscious to merely asleep, so all we can do now is let her rest and wait."

Alec nodded, satisfied. Midna was going to be okay, and was recovering. He let out a deep breath and he felt as though some of the weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was about to ask if he could see Midna when he remembered something else.

"Hey doc…where's the rest of the staff and patients today? It's not like this place to be so quiet," Alec said, "And you never answer the phones. What's up?"

Kiowa smiled slightly, "I'm closed for the day." At Alec's apologetic look, she continued, "But when I saw it was you calling, I knew I had probably better answer it. Nine times out of ten, you've got some horrible emergency, always when it's least convenient. You've got a knack, mister."

Alec grinned nervously and looked away. "Yeah, I guess I do, don't I?" He chuckled quietly.

The two friends enjoyed the comfortable silence for a moment. The rain battered the front windows of the clinic and ran in tiny rivers down the surface of the plate glass. Faintly, Alec heard the hum of one of the many humidifiers or sterilizers the clinic employed to keep conditions inside optimal. Alec's head was buzzing pleasantly as his body and mind recovered from the morning's adrenaline high and settled back into the more sedate pace of everyday life. For a while, just a little while, everything was going to be okay. Alec smiled faintly and relaxed as his world went soft around the edges.

All good things must come to an end. Alec and Kiowa were rudely jerked out of their trance by a crash from the direction of the examinations rooms. Their heads jerked up simultaneously and they shared a glance. They leapt out of their seats and made a beeline for the door leading further into the building.

As their feet pounded across the tile floor, their emotions mirrored one another; excitement, apprehension, fear, and concern, all mashed together.

The pair knew that whatever happened next in that examination room would change their lives.

* * *

Notes: And we learn more about the good doctor, her motives and her personality. Alec's finally waking up from the panic that's seized him all morning, only to be yanked back into it.

What awaits our heroes now?

Chapter five is written and awaiting editing. Please leave a review, feedback, both good and bad is appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Midna and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.

**Entwilightened**

_Chapter 5_

She was floating. Drifting. How had she arrived in this place? Perhaps she had always been here. All around her was a flat, featureless plain. The sky above her was yellow, tinted with orange and faded to black at the edges. Below her was fathomless blackness. Twilight. Was this some sort of purgatory, her own personal hell? Had she committed some terrible sin? She shook her head and frowned. She didn't know. Couldn't remember.

She struggled in vain to recall the events that had led to her existence in this nowhere. She sighed and lay back, suspended several meters above the flat "ground", no means of support visible. She simply floated. She allowed her worries to slip away, something surprisingly easy in this strange place…

As she relaxed, her eyes slid closed, ever so slowly. Finally, they shut, and she lay back, and let out a contented sigh, utterly at ease.

Her mind was assaulted by visions.

They flashed by in a torrent of light and sound, so fast and loud she couldn't comprehend them. Sound roared in her ears so loudly it felt like a physical force, a squeezing vice of pressure on her head. The images flickered past one after another, all the colors too bright, the focus too sharp, the entire sensation too overwhelming for her mind to process. She saw a black stone covered in white runic markings, a huge black wolf, a headpiece made of swirling shadows, but shaped to appear as stone, a room filled with metallic devices, a black metallic contraption that roared and flew impossibly through the air-

Fire.

Everything was burning. The images were coming faster and faster now, scenes of carnage, and destruction. Twisted, blackened stones and wooden beams, metallic supports, crumbling stone, a poisonous red sky, a diseased purple and orange sun, images of parched, dusty earth blowing in the wind framed by blackened craters and stagnant muddy water, a city in ruins, none of the buildings intact, all of them shaken to pieces as if a giant hand had taken them each and crushed them so that only foundations remained, the stones fallen to the streets, the streets coated inches thick with blood and littered with bodies...

She could no longer make out individual images in the rapid slideshow of horror. She was shaking, curled into a ball. It had to stop or she would go mad. The sound increased to a roar, a cacophony of screams of pain and fear and death until it all became a roar of suffering in her head. She rocked back and forth, eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming from her eyes. The visions were coming faster, and they were getting _louder_ and they weren't _stopping_ and they wanted her they _wanted her_ oh goddesses stop make it stop make it stop anything to make it _stop_

With a violent wrenching feeling in her head, the visions halted and vanished as quickly as they had come. She snapped her head back, eyes wide, seeing nothing, panting. The sudden silence of the void was deafening and her whimpers of terror and pain echoed and made her head ache. She quivered in the void and sobbed.

Then, the void seemed to ripple and contract and darken. She heard footsteps echo among the silence, the sound magnified a thousand times by the acoustics of this strange place. The footsteps were drawing closer, getting louder. Midna's heart beat a drumroll against her chest, and a lump of fear lodged in her throat. She began breathing hard as the fear took its toll, and the footsteps approached. She flushed, nearly breaking out in a sweat, before her blood froze, leaving her shivering.

_Clomp-clomp-clom-clo-cl..._

_Clomp-clomp-clom-clo-cl..._

_CLOMP-clomp-clomp-clom..._

_CLOMP-CLOMP-clomp-clomp..._

The echoing footsteps stopped, and through the blackness, she could just make out a pair of boots from her position on the floor. The fear gripped her entirely now. Her pupils dilated, her breathing came in short gasps, and she couldn't find the will to move her body or even shut her eyes.

And then, there was pain. Every inch of her body was aflame, and she shrieked and arched her back. She couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't taste, couldn't smell, couldn't think...all she could feel was agony. Her veins were on fire, her bones were frozen, her flesh was being shorn away, and all that was left of the once-proud woman was a shrieking, terrified animal suffering on the floor.

Finally, blessedly, the pain stopped and she collapsed to the floor, panting, still conscious-whether that was a miracle or a curse, she literally could not say.

She lay in a pool of her own blood, drenched in it, rivulets running away and disappearing into the darkness. She was dying. Dying. It did not seem real, or possible. Her vision was fading to black at the edges, spots of color dancing in front of her eyes. She looked up at her killer and saw a pair of brown boots. She shakily looked up further and found white leggings, a green tunic...blond hair and blue eyes. Her heart gave a horrible wrench, she choked out a single sob, and knew no more.

* * *

She jerked into wakefulness and gasped. The sharp movement had sent a stream of pain shivering down her body. She resolved to avoid sudden movements for the time being and lay back with a soft groan, shuddering. Already, the nightmare was fading from memory.

As lucidity slowly returned and the dream was forgotten, she appraised her situation. She was in a windowless room, lying on some kind of a bed. Her robes and headdress had been removed and she was wearing a soft green gown. By the feel of it, it scarcely preserved her modesty and was little more than a token effort. She turned her head to the side, wincing at the throbbing pain the simple action sent rippling through her skull. To the right of the bed she lay in was some kind of off-white mechanical column, covered in tubes and rubbery-looking ropes of indeterminate purpose. She noticed one of the ropes that was stretched taut and followed it with her eyes. She discovered that it connected to a small, lightweight device clamped around her index finger. She blinked slowly and turned her head slowly back to the machine, gears in her head grinding to a start.

The machine was beeping quietly in time with her heartbeat. The effect was hypnotic, and kept her drowsy. Through her mind's haze, she realized that her body felt stiff, unresponsive, and covered in some kind of foreign material. With an effort, she raised her arm for inspection, and discovered it swathed in adhesive patches in various places. A brief examination revealed that much of her body was covered in the strange patches. She tentatively poked one of the patches and gritted her teeth as a lance of pain shot up her arm. So she was cut underneath the patches. The patches were bandages. She had been bandaged and put in bed, hooked up to a mysterious machine. Which meant she was in...

Well, hopefully some kind of medical center. The alternatives were much less pleasant.

Something else nagged at the back of her mind. There was something important she was forgetting...

She bolted upright, pointedly ignoring her body's protests. The mirror! Oh goddesses, she had shattered it, stepped through the portal and then...

She had woken up here? She frowned and attempted to assemble the mental jigsaw. As she did so, she failed to notice the mechanical column she was attached to slowly tipping over, having been overbalanced by her sudden upward jerk. She did not fail, however, to miss the _crash!_ it made as it slammed into the floor. She jumped and looked down, eyes wide. The sound would have surely alerted whoever had tended to her wounds. Sure enough, within moments, she heard footsteps, and then the door to the room was open, the brighter light of the hallway silhouetting two humanoid figures. They rushed into the room and she frowned. Humans? Just where was she?

* * *

Kiowa opened the door and took in the scene with a practiced eye. Patient awake and upright, mobile console on its side on the floor. Patient first, equipment second. She moved briskly over to Midna and eyed her bandages critically. Nothing seemed out of place.

Kiowa made eye contact with Midna, and did her best to speak soothingly, "Lay back down. You can't be reopening those cuts now." Kiowa gently pushed Midna back down by her uninjured shoulder.

Midna glared in response but complied. _"Ku e palla na?" _she asked. Kiowa stared blankly, uncomprehending. She couldn't help but notice her voice had an odd harmonic quality, as if it were echoing with itself.

"Alec, what language is that?" Kiowa asked.

Alec shrugged, "Not a clue. There was no voice acting in the game, and all the text was in English, or whatever it was localized to. Maybe it's Twili?"

Kiowa rolled her eyes. "That's useful." She turned back to Midna, "I don't assume you can under-" She stopped suddenly.

Midna was sitting up and one of the many runic inscriptions on her body was glowing. She touched two fingers to her temple, and there was a brief blue flash. Midna winced, and wavered for a moment before settling back onto the pillow.

Kiowa stared at Midna, slightly bug-eyed. "Alec," she said flatly, "What was that."

He was beginning to feel a little out of his depth. "Uh. Magic? I think?"

The two humans both turned to Midna. She rolled her eyes at them and sighed. Then, she pointed at the pair and mimed speech with her hand. When the humans failed to react, she sighed and repeated her actions.

Alec blinked and frowned. "You want us to talk?"

Midna gave him a look of mock surprise that said very clearly 'Well done, give the man a prize!' Incredible. He had just met her, and already she thought him an imbecile.

"Uh, okay. I assume you can understand us then?" Alec ventured. Midna nodded. "Okay...and the spell had something to do with it?" Midna appeared to listen for a moment after he had finished speaking, and then nodded slowly. "So...it was a translation spell. Right?" Midna gave a silent cheer.

"Translation..." Midna muttered. Kiowa and Alec jumped. "Yes, translation." Her voice was high-pitched, almost like that of a girl's. It held a hint of mischief, as if everything she said was in some small way, a joke. It was very strange to hear the odd echoing quality applied to English.

"You need us to speak for it to work," said Kiowa.

"Yes," Midna agreed. "I need..." She trailed off, uncertain.

"Words?" Alec guessed.

"Yes. Words." Midna relaxed and motioned for them to continue.

"Very well," said Kiowa, slipping into Doctor Mode, "I'll start with your injuries. You're covered in a series of minor lacerations, along with two larger cuts. I was unable to identify the case, but they all appear to be superficial in nature. Minor as they were however, you lost a fair amount of blood. As I'm unfamiliar with your physiology, I didn't know how you would react to an IV. Honestly, I'm surprised you're awake at all. Other than that, you've got a bump on that head that doesn't seem too serious. You may have a minor concussion-I can check right now if you'd like," she finished.

Midna again appeared to be listening to something before she replied. "Yes, I would like that."

Kiowa unhooked a penlight from her lapel and shined it into each of Midna's eyes in turn. Kiowa studied the results for a moment before leaning back and stowing the light. "Yes, I think you're fine. You're made of tough stuff, Midna."

Midna froze and narrowed her eyes. "My name..." she managed, "How did..."

Kiowa closed her eyes and cursed inwardly. "That's an interesting story...one my friend here seems to know better than I," she said, looking pointedly at Alec.

Midna rounded her glare onto Alec and his eyes widened in sudden terror. _She can blow me to smithereens_ his mind shouted at him. He looked around wildly for an escape, but found none. He turned back to Midna and seemed to deflate. He sank into a nearby chair, buried his face in his hands and began.

"I know all about your adventure in Hyrule with Link. Right from the start, with him as a wolf, through the woods, and the Temple of Time and Lakebed Temple and the flying city, up to end, in the fight against Ganon," he babbled, "You're Midna, the Twilight Princess." Alec looked up. Midna was staring at him with a mixture of confusion and disbelief.

She raised a single eyebrow and said, "How?"

Alec shook his head. "I…later. I feel crazy enough without telling you right now. If it makes anything better though...I haven't been spying on you or anything like that. The truth is, ah, weirder than that," he said.

Midna looked suspiciously-and helplessly-at Kiowa, who merely shrugged and nodded. When she looked back at Alec, he looked down and refused to meet her eyes.

Kiowa whispered something to Alec, who nodded and left the room. The doctor righted the fallen mobile EKG console, and reattached the heart monitor to Midna's finger.

"Leave that on, it'll let me know how you're doing. If you need anything, press the button there," she pointed to a small control panel on the bed's railing, "and I'll come check on you. Right now, just try to get some rest." Kiowa opened the door and made to leave. "Oh...and if it helps any," she said, looking back and smiling, "we mean you no harm." She left the room and closed the door.

* * *

Midna's head spun, and she wasn't sure if it was the result of the recent revelations or the blood loss. She was not in Hyrule, that much was clear. She knew Hyrulian, and the language these humans spoke wasn't even remotely similar. And their technology seemed far more advanced than the Hyrulians', or even her people's. What was that light the doctor had shone into her eyes? She hadn't seen any fire or sensed any magic. And how in the world did that Alec character know about Link and their battle against Ganondorf? _Ganon_, she corrected herself. The boy had called him "Ganon" for some reason.

Perhaps she was merely elsewhere in the Light Realm, far from Hyrule where tales of the fight had spread. But then how had she never heard of this place while traveling through Hyrule, advanced as it was?

Unbeknownst to her, Midna's thoughts echoed those of Kiowa earlier in the day. _More questions than answers_...She lay back and allowed her translation spell to continue its work, buzzing away in the back of her mind.

* * *

Alec was sitting on the floor across the hall, slumped against the wall. Kiowa leaned against the wall next to him and slowly slid down to join him on the floor.

"Heavy stuff," she sighed.

"No kidding," Alec said. "You know, I don't think I realized until just now that all this is really real." He looked at Kiowa, eyes full of fear and apprehension, "What am I gonna do, Doc?"

"Help her recover, find out how she got here, get her home. Everything else is in the details," Kiowa answered immediately.

"You're not much for specifics, even for a doctor, Doc."

She smiled. "Don't count your chickens before they're blah blah blah, you know the cliche. This line of work calls for more improvisation than most people assume-after all, how could I ever have planned for all the trouble you bring me?" Kiowa grinned at him, hands on her hips.

"Oooh, doc! Low blow!" Alec groaned. He was thoughtful for a moment, before speaking. "But you know...Midna in a hospital gown? That's an image that I think will stick with me the rest of my life," he mused.

The pair was overtaken by a fit of giggling and snickering.

* * *

Notes: Finally, the sleeper awakes. And yes, magic is a nice catch-all for overcoming language barriers. I'll be dealing with Midna's magical abilities in more detail later, so expect more of that.

As for Midna's brief twili-speech, I did my best to take her "speech" from the game and put it to words. I know it's just scrambled sounds, but it seems legitimate to assume it's a language. Or something.

Writing Midna is hard. Writing dialogue for a language-impaired Midna even more so. Writing dialogue for a confused, language-impaired, out-of-her-element, post-nightmare Midna is really hard.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Midna and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.

**Entwilightened**

_Chapter 6_

_July 5, 2009_

_It appears I've gone mad, courtesy of—who else—Alec Balkojec. That boy is more trouble than anything I've ever seen. Today, out of the blue, I get a call from him telling me his friend is hurt and it's an emergency. I assumed it was something like the snowboard incident last year, and told him to bring them in._

_Instead he brings in a black-and-grey-skinned, orange-haired girl who bleeds green._

_My God, that sounds mad written like that._

_Anyway, he proceeds to tell me she's something called a Twili from some video game. Legend of somethingorother. And she's a princess. And a sorceress. _

_I'm understandably skeptical, but take him at face value for the time being. Alec doesn't tell stories, and the strangely colored flesh and blood _are _adding some credibility._

_Oh, did I mention she's covered in cuts? Alec says he has no idea how that happened._

_I patch her up, go to give Alec an update and as I finish up, we hear a crash from the back of the clinic. We race back there to find Midna—the patient—awake. She's knocked over the mobile EKG/IV doodad and looks like a deer in the headlights._

_As I'm trying to calm her down, she speaks some language I don't recognize at all. When we convey our lack of understanding, she gets this frustrated look on her face and one of the green tattoo-looking lines on her body starts _glowing_. Then, she touches two fingers to her temple, there's a blue flash, and she's miming for us to speak. Through a little yes-no question session, we figure out she's cast a translation spell on herself._

Kiowa leaned back and stared at the screen for a moment. She shook her head and continued typing.

_Either she's playing us for fools and is a good actress, or she's the real deal. She starts speaking some simple English and I explain as best I can why she's here. I slip up and call her by name and she gets suspicious. Alec explains vaguely how we know who she is. She seems convinced, if surprised. Alec leaves the room, and I fix up the readout console and follow._

_Alec left a few minutes ago. I think it was all a bit too much for him._

_It's just the Midna girl and me now. I should probably go check on her. I doubt she really trusts us._

Kiowa saved and closed the file. As she moved to stand up, an idea stopped her, and she returned to her seat. She opened the computer's browser and navigated to Wikipedia. She contemplated the search box for a moment before typing in "Twilight Princess".

"Maybe this'll give me a better idea of what's going on…" she muttered.

The page loaded was titled "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess". She filed it away for future reference—it could come in useful. She scanned the page, taking in snippets of the game's plot as she went, remembering the things Alec had said and connecting them to what she was reading. Seeing Midna's name highlighted in blue under the _Plot_ subsection, she clicked on the link and waited for the page to load.

She read through the article and frowned when she neared the end. "This is all pretty cut and dried…now they live happily ever after, right?" She scrolled down further, and her frown deepened. "Maybe not…shatters the mirror and returns home…" She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. "Not your typical happily-ever-after then," she mused.

She leaned back in her chair and twirled a pen in her fingers. Everything Alec had told her matched up with what the Wikipedia page said. Unless this was some incredibly elaborate hoax, (which she doubted—there was no simple way to get blood that uniformly green. Or iridescent.) all this was really happening, and they had an interdimensional visitor. Armed with this troubling knowledge, she removed the flash drive and shut the computer off.

"Time to talk to the princess," she sighed and reentered the hallway.

* * *

The elevator dinged and he gave a silent cheer. On the sixth floor he had hit green gold. He grimaced at the analogy; he could do better than that.

Pay dirt, then. Either way, he had discovered a trail of green spots leading away from the elevator bank to the hallway. It was easy enough to spot on the off-white tile floor. He walked off the elevator, eyes glued to the floor. He stopped abruptly as the tile turned to carpet and swore. This was going to make it a little harder. And why did the carpet have to be blue?

He stooped down, glaring fiercely at the carpet as if trying to intimidate it into cooperating. After several seconds of staring contest with the carpet, Roger won. Just like in one of those magic eye puzzles, something in his brain clicked, and suddenly he could see the green stains on the carpet effortlessly. He began following the trail down the hall, hunched over like a Sherlockian detective.

He halted. The trail had disappeared. He executed a standing turn and backtracked until he located the nearest green stain. He looked up and straightened. The door ahead of him had to be the source. 608. Time to confirm his suspicions.

He knocked. No answer. Excellent.

_It pays off,_ he reflected, _to carry a little bag of tricks_. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small velvet drawstring bag. In it, he had a variety of little implements, bits of wire, cables and assorted odds and ends. He pulled out a thin screwdriver and a meticulously bent paperclip, then returned the bag to his pocket. He jammed the screwdriver into the lock on the doorknob, and gently inserted his trusty paperclip. Lockpicking was a particularly useful skill, especially if you were nosy. It was also surprisingly easy to do with a little practice.

He felt around for the first tumbler with the paperclip and nodded when the it encountered resistance. He pushed up gently, and he felt the pressure on the paperclip disappear. The lock turned slightly before catching again.

Roger was so absorbed in his work, he didn't hear the footsteps behind him until the person gave a pointed _ahem._ He jumped and turned around.

"Oh, hi there! What can I do for ya?" he asked, grinning cheerfully.

The owner of the cough was a sour-faced old lady. Her expression was a cross between a glare and a scowl, and seemed very at home on her features. "What d'you think you're doing with that lock there?" she demanded.

"Oh, this?" Roger laughed. "My buddy Alec had to rush a friend of his to the doctor's and caught me on the way out. Said he locked himself out, and 'couldn't you get my key for me'?" Taking the old lady's lack of response and a signal to continue, he did so, "Seeing as I'm a locksmith, I figured this sorta thing'll be a breeze!"

"You break into people's homes for a living? Sounds an awful lot like burglary to me!" said the old lady, turning her glare up a notch.

Roger remained unfazed and kept up his grin. "Nonsense! My job is to help people out if they ever run into any lock-related problems! I'd never use my powers for evil!" The last sentence was said with a wink.

"Don't locksmiths usually use drills?" The lady was relentless.

"Only if you want to ruin the lock, madam!" Roger said with a vaguely horrified expression on his face. "Picking it is much less likely to damage it, and as an advantage, does not require the owner to buy a new lock or keys! Observe…" Roger turned back to the door and began working the lock once more.

"What're you doing? I can't see!" Despite herself, it appeared the old lady was curious now.

Roger knew he had her now. "What I'm doing here is, essentially, what a key does. Except I'm doing it manually, see? Every key's got those little teeth in it that push little pins in the lock up to an exact height. The way the lock is made, I can push the pins up and have them hold in the right position with a little bit o' finesse…" At the word "finesse", the lock gave a click and turned a little more. "Aha! See, that there's tumbler number two down! I'll be at this for a bit longer…" he muttered.

"Well, I suppose you don't _seem_ like a crook," the old lady admitted. "I hope I never find you doing that to my door though, locksmith or not!" She harrumphed and began walking away.

"Good day miss…ah…" Roger paused.

"Clarkson!" she shouted. "As if it's any o' yer business…" she muttered to herself.

"Goodbye Ms. Clarkson! A pleasure meeting you!" Roger called, turned back to the lock and let out a sigh. "That…was close," he breathed.

In minutes, he had successfully repeated the process for each tumbler, and all of them were out of the way. He raked the paperclip across the top of the lock mechanism to check for sure, and nodded. He turned the lock with the screwdriver, and gave a sharp cry as the door swung open and he fell through the doorway.

That was unexpected. He thought he'd have to pick the deadbolt as well. He had not been looking forward to that part, but it seemed he had worried needlessly.

He got to his feet, swung the door closed behind him and relocked it. No sense making anybody suspicious if they came home unexpectedly. Besides which, it would give him a few more moments to find a hiding place if he needed one.

Roger rubbed his hands together as he looked around the room. Basic apartment—kitchen to the right with a wraparound counter, open to the living room. The living room had precious little in it, save for a few ornamental knickknacks, an ancient black TV, the most beaten up coffee table he had ever seen, and a sagging, floral print sofa.

On the far left end of the right-hand wall was a door leading deeper into the apartment. To the right of the door was a hallway with a door at its end, and two on its right wall. The forward wall was home to two grimy windows. The rainstorm seemed to be doing very little for them-the grime was probably second generation, naturally selected to be resistant to weather, soap, and possibly nuclear holocaust. The left-hand wall was blank.

Roger shrugged and decided to try the hallway first. First door on the right was…a bathroom that looked like a tiny tornado had swept through. Bottles were strewn all over the floor and the medicine cabinet was wide open.

_Whatever happened, _Roger thought¸ _I guess it was medical._ _Either that, or they're slobs._ He entered, and other than the general disaster-zone appearance, nothing seemed to be amiss. He retreated from the room, and closed the door.

_And behind door number two is…_ Roger thought as he moved to the second door in the hallway. He threw it open. _...a linen closet. _He gave a quick once-over, not expecting to find anything. Unsurprisingly, he found nothing and closed the door.

He turned to the end of the hallway and put his hand on the doorknob. _Probably a master bedroom,_ he thought, and opened the door. He was right. The room was nearly as large as the living room, and a bed in the center dominated it. It was even gloomier than the rest of the apartment, lit only by a single water-covered window on the left wall. Everything was cast in vague silhouettes and indiscernible shapes.

Roger prowled the room, checking each half of the room thoroughly, even checking under the bed. Nothing. Roger tapped his temple before slipping out the door and back into the living room.

_What have we got behind door number three?_ He had, in retrospect, removed the linen closet from Numbered Door status.

He carefully eased the door off the latch, before throwing it wide open. When he saw what was inside, he sucked a breath in through his teeth and a chill ran down his spine.

On the floor at the end of the bed, the carpet was soaked in the green stuff. Worse, it looked thick and viscous like…

_Oh God,_ Roger gagged, and noticed a metallic scent in the air, like copper mixed with mint. He tried not to breathe, but the smell invaded his nostrils anyway.

Just when he thought he had it under control, it occurred to him that he had followed a trail of blood up here. As if that thought wasn't enough, his mind superimposed an image of a grey and black skinned woman, lying on the floor, covered in green blood, eyes wide open and sightless.

Five minutes later found Roger sitting in his apartment on the third floor, shivering. He had no desire to return to apartment 608 anytime soon. He reached into his jacket pocket and touched the stiff wad of green-stained toilet paper. He shuddered. Damn his curiosity.

* * *

Alec pulled into the apartment complex's parking lot and cursed as he got the only available space—as far away from the lobby as possible. He killed the engine, hopped out of the car and hit the ground running. He was sick of being wet, and wanted to get out of the downpour as soon as he could. The rain pounded his body like tiny, explosive jackhammers. Cold jackhammers.

He crashed into the lobby and nearly bowled over an old lady attempting to exit. He skidded on wet sneakers, spun around and did a good impression of a full body tackle toward the ground. He rolled over and groaned. Now he was wet and aching.

An elderly face appeared in his field of view. "Oh. Hi Ms. Clarkson. Sorry about that. I was trying to get out of the rain."

Ms. Clarkson scowled, "Young man, you are an absolute terror," she huffed, and disappeared from Alec's view.

"Yeah, you're a ball of cheer yourself, y'old bat," he muttered, extricating himself from the ground and calling an elevator.

He pushed the button for the sixth floor and stepped out when the car stopped. As he was entering the hallway, he noted the silvery-green blood on the floor and made a note to clean that up soon.

Alec reached room 608, grabbed the doorknob and moved to retrieve his keys when the motion unexpectedly caused the doorknob to turn. He frowned and pushed the door open. Hadn't he locked it as he left? Maybe not…he couldn't even remember now; the past hour or whatever it had been was all a blur now.

He shrugged and locked the door behind him. He opened the door to his bedroom and flopped onto his bed. He relaxed for all of four seconds before his nose wrinkled and he sniffed. What was that smell—oh, right. Dammit.

He rolled off the bed, retrieved a washcloth from the linen closet, and a second bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the bathroom. He groaned as he entered the bathroom—he was going to have to clean that up as well. As he made his way back to the bedroom, he stared at the bottle in his hand and shook his head. What couldn't this stuff do?

It turned out that it couldn't quite get out the green stain at the foot of his bed. The washcloth picked up most of it, but there was still a very definite circle. He tossed the washcloth in the trash along with the bloodied tissues scattered around, and tidied up the bathroom to the best of his ability.

Finally finished, he flopped onto his bed with an audible groan. He considered thinking about the day for a moment, but exhaustion and the post-adrenaline crash had other ideas, and he quickly fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Notes: All hail Wikipedia for its breadth of knowledge, if not its depth or accuracy. Roger makes a triumphant return, and the day comes to a close. Kiowa learns a little more about the situation and Alec is having a hard time coming to grips.

Just got home from a three-week trip, so I'm a little behind. Chapter 7 is partially written. Given the amount of stuff I have planned for it, I may end up splitting it in two. We'll see. Also, some slight formatting convention changes. Slightly new look, same (great?) taste. As always, please review if you've got any kind of feedback.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Midna and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.

**Entwilightened**

_Chapter 7_

A pair of red pinpoints winked into existence, not so much illuminating the water-soaked night, as lending it shape. A ragged, homeless man seeking shelter from the rain was leaning against the opposite alley wall, using a sheet of cardboard as a makeshift roof. He awoke suddenly, groggily alert for danger. He glanced about wildly, looking desperately for the thing that had disturbed his slumber. He spotted the pair of red lights and relaxed slightly. Just some kind of radio or something. Someone had probably thrown it into the alley while it was still powered on and it had awakened him. Nothing to be alarmed about.

He began to settle back against the wall and froze. He held his breath and his heart thumped wildly against his ribcage. The lights had moved. In concert, no less. So either they were both attached to the same part of the stereo or…

…or what?

As the unfortunate man began to ponder just what the lights might be, he slowly, quietly let out a breath. The lights snapped over to point straight at him, and the breath caught in his throat. The two pinpoints weren't lights.

They were eyes. Two rings of red, surrounding black pupils flecked with crimson. Staring right at him. Raw terror gripped his lungs and throat and prevented him from making a sound.

The eyes rose, presumably a result of their owner standing, and approached the homeless man. Each step was punctuated with the heavy _clump_ of large boots. Each step caused a painful contraction in his gut as fear seized his gut. He craned his head to meet the red eyes as their owner halted above him.

He never saw what happened, but there was a sudden, fiery burning in his belly, followed by a ghastly liquid squelching feeling in the same region. He gasped wetly and collapsed sideways, sliding down the alley wall.

A pair of boots stepped into his rapidly dimming field of vision. They were grey, calf-high and soaked halfway up the heel in blood. The last thing the homeless man saw before death clouded his vision was that not all of the blood was fresh.

A phone set to vibrate and then placed on a wooden surface makes a unique sound. It's a combination of a rattle and a buzz, set at just the perfect frequency to jerk a sleeper out of the land of Nod with the maximum amount of irritation.

This was precisely the sound that caused Alec to jerk once and thrash out of his bed and onto the ground. He untangled his arms from the covers and, eyes closed, and half on the bed, he reached up to his ringing cell phone and snapped it open next to his ear.

"Mmmrph?"

"Alec, where the hell have you been? We agreed that you'd meet me here at ten! I've been calling all morning!" Kiowa's voice crackled from the speaker, causing unpleasant throbbing sensations in Alec's skull.

He pulled the phone away from his ear, both to check the time and to mitigate the oncoming headache.

Eleven-thirty. Whoops.

He put the phone back to his ear and said, "Sorry Doc. Yesterday waa…" Alec yawned, "ah! Wiped me out. I'll be there in…" He yawned again, "Oh…twenty minutes or so."

"You had better be," the Doctor snapped. The line went dead.

Alec finally managed to get his eyes unglued and snapped them open, and immediately regretted it as light stabbed at his retinas. Wincing, he hauled himself upright and stumbled into the bathroom where he speed-showered and threw on some clothes. He returned to his room and grabbed a few items of importance. Wallet, keys, check. Phone…finally charged, obviously, and check. He dumped everything into his expansive pockets and made for the front door. He was halfway through doorway when he happened to look at the coat rack inside the entry hall, and spotted his father's keys.

Alec halted, momentarily gripped by indecision. His father was home, and would probably wonder why Alec had gotten to sleep at a reasonable hour the previous night, an unusual event to be sure. Alec knew waking his father was a dangerous venture at best. He settled on a note and stuck it to the fridge.

_Dad, went to Doc's to check on a friend. Dunno when I'll be back._

_-Alec_

Having wasted enough time, Alec darted out the door.

Roger ran his finger over the edge of the envelope for the hundredth time, trying in vain to calm his breathing. It wasn't so much the contents of the envelope that made him nervous, or who he was about to meet. Instead, it was what might be done with the contents of the envelope once he revealed them.

_One tissue, blood-stained, green, _he thought to himself. _What sort of thing bleeds green? _Nothing! _Nothing human anyway…_he shut off that train of thought. He had been thinking about the contents of the envelope all morning, and invariably ran into that same dead end every time. The thing he'd carried downstairs the day before wasn't human.

So what was it?

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and cleared his mind as best he could. He was going to need all his wits about him if he wanted to deal with Fred.

Fred was had been his roommate in college, and had double majored in Biology and Chemistry, and then moved on to become a grad student. Now Fred was researching…something. It was incomprehensible and probably unpronounceable to mere mortals such as Roger.

The thing that made Fred so difficult to talk to was his inability to focus on a singular subject. Instead of conversationally starting at Point A, traveling until he reached Point B, then changing direction until he ended at Point C like most people, Fred would start at Point A, jump over to Point B for a little while, hop back to where he'd left off at Point A, and then after a short while, abruptly shift over to previously untouched Point Twenty-Seven before suddenly returning to Point B. He eventually got to Point C, but the journey was so mind-bending, most people got off very quickly, claiming whiplash or motion sickness. Roger had learned the trick to handling Fred when the two had shared a room, but it was nothing to be taken lightly.

He entered the science building, found his way to the appropriate door and knocked. It opened to reveal a beaming Fred.

"Roger! Glad you could make it, glad you could make it, come in and sit down, coffee or tea?" said Fred.

"Of course, thanks, coffee please," Roger responded, quickly falling into old habits borne of many conversations with his speedy friend.

Fred quickly filled a paper cup with coffee from the pot and handed it to Roger. "So what brings you to my office? Haven't talked in a while, never had much in common during school, but got along well enough. Probably not a social call. Need help with something?"

Roger leaned back, sipping his coffee, "Near enough. I've got a favor to ask of you. I've found myself a mystery substance that I'd like you to take a look at." Fred raised an eyebrow, "It's nothing illegal," Roger added quickly, "I hope." Fred's other eyebrow went up.

"You hope?" asked Fred, half-turning away and opening a new browser window at his computer.

"Well, I uh…found it under very strange circumstances," said Roger. He explained his encounter with the man in the elevator carrying a cloaked figure, editing out the part where he broke into the apartment. "So I swabbed up a bit of the stuff, and when I thought of somebody handy with a microscope, you fit the bill."

Fred cupped his chin and turned to face Roger completely. "You say it was dripping off the figure's fingers onto the ground and you found a trail of it…green and iridescent you say? Any more idea what the figure looked like? What was the substance's viscosity like before it dried? You're _sure_ this isn't illegal? The head of the chemistry department would kill me. Do you have any theories about what it is personally? Iridescence likely result of high number of layered discrete chemical components, can't determine result of color without more data…" Fred trailed off into inaudible muttering.

Unfazed, Roger responded, "Yeah, dripping out of her coat or trench coat or whatever from the sleeves and from the bottom hemline. I assume it came from her hands or legs or something. It was definitely green, and definitely shiny. The figure was…well, I couldn't see the face, but the feet were poking out and they looked awfully grey…not pale, but an actual dark grey." Roger frowned in recollection for a moment, "Viscosity…like, how thick it was?" At Fred's nod he continued, "Pretty thick I'd say. Sort of like…" He paused.

He didn't want Fred to know he thought it was blood. The idea freaked him out enough, and he knew that if he scared Fred off, he'd lose his chance at getting to the bottom of the mystery. "Sort of like cooking oil, a little runnier maybe."

"Like blood?" asked Fred.

Roger gaped at Fred. "How do you _do_ that?"

"Do what?" Fred asked, the picture of confused innocence.

"Nothing, nothing…but yeah. Like blood. In fact, that's kind of what I suspect it is," said Roger.

Fred didn't even blink. "Iridescent green blood, dripping from a cloaked grey figure. O-kay," he said, and rubbed his hands together.

"I know it sounds crazy—" Roger said, before Fred cut him off with a raised hand.

Fred leveled a finger at Roger. "No more out of you, my curiosity is piqued and I don't want you influencing any conclusions I draw. Let's get that bad boy under a microscope. One more thing, before I agree to this." he said, turning to face his computer once more.

"Of course. What do you need?" asked Roger, leaning forward.

"When referring to the figure, you used a feminine pronoun. Said 'her'. Why?"

Roger winced. He'd hoped that Fred hadn't caught that little slip of the tongue. He should have known better, for all his fast-talking bluster, Fred was as sharp as a knife. "Damn, noticed that, did you? Would you believe it's because I didn't want to call her "it" and I picked a pronoun at random?" Roger asked hopefully.

Fred turned and looked Roger straight in the eye. "Roger, I lived with you for two years. If you're going to use a neutral pronoun you use 'he'. Yes, I noticed and remembered that—in fact, we even had a conversation about it when you were drunk one night. Don't believe you remember. Ended with you stumbling into bathroom, shouting about unfairness of English language, throwing up and passing out. But I digress—what made you think of figure as female?"

Roger blushed and resolved never to drink around Fred again. "Uh, I dunno. It's just kind of a hunch, you know? I didn't get a good look at her face or anything, but the shape just seemed female, you know?"

Fred hmmmed and nodded. "Okay. Will take a look at your sample. Should have results for you in two or three days.

Roger handed over the envelope, and left the room feeling like he'd passed some kind of test. As he was going out the door, he looked down and realized he was still holding his cup of coffee. He downed the contents and threw the empty paper cup in a trash can. He rubbed the side of his face and made a mental note to pick up coffee on the way home. He had a hunch he was going to need it soon.

Apologies for the interminable delay. Between a combination of apathy, writer's block and business, this chapter took forever-and-a-half. Everything after the first scene got completely rewritten at least twice.

With any luck Chapter 8 will be along shortly, but with my track record, we'll see.


End file.
